Vikings' Monday night game vs. Bears is a reminder they got it right with Kwesi Adofo-Mensah over Ryan Poles
Monday Night Football will have the Minnesota Vikings on for the first time this year as they are set to take on the Chicago Bears. It's an interesting game on the field. The two teams met just three weeks ago when the Vikings held a 27-16 lead with just 30 seconds left before the Bears […]
Monday Night Football will have the Minnesota Vikings on for the first time this year as they are set to take on the Chicago Bears.
It's an interesting game on the field. The two teams met just three weeks ago when the Vikings held a 27-16 lead with just 30 seconds left before the Bears ran off 11 points in the final seconds and send the game into overtime. The Vikings got the win 30-27 when quarterback Sam Darnold threw for 90 yards to drive the offense down the field for the game-winning field goal.
Since that game, both teams have shown the paths they are on are very different.
Minnesota Vikings got it right with Kwesi Adofo-Mensah
It's been an excellent few seasons for the Minnesota Vikings under the leadership of general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and head coach Kevin O'Connell. They are entering the biggest seasons of their tenure.
Going into this season, the Vikings are 11-2 with the playoffs almost certainly guaranteed with just one more win clinching a berth. They are still one game plus a tie-breaker behind the Detroit Lions but they were never supposed to be here.
Going into the season, the Vikings were projected to have a win total of a paltry 6.5 games. Nobody believed in the idea of the Vikings' competitive rebuild nor did they think they were going to do much this season with Darnold at quarterback.
Not only did the Vikings defy expectations, they have blown past them with ease, as they got their seventh win in their ninth game, a 12-7 win over the Jacksonville Jaguars.
The Vikings weren't thought to be competitive due to the strategy of the competitive rebuild, one that Adofo-Mensah firmly believes in.
"The point of that (idea) was to still provide ourselves a chance in the tournament every year while regaining financial flexibility, finding the next generation of great Vikings players, incorporating our systems that we value so much, and I think when you look back at it, I think we’ve done a lot of positives," Adofo-Mensah said after the 2023 season. "I think we’ve regained some of our financial flexibility. We have competed to be in the tournament last year as the division champions and this year, through adversity, had a lot of meaningful games late.
"There’s some things we need to be better at, no question. I think, again, you want to get to a point from a depth, from a top-end standpoint, where you can overcome the adversity we have. So right now, in the competitive rebuild, we want to get to a place where there’s no rebuild, it’s just competitive in a window, and I think we’re close to that. It’s going to take a big offseason … and I’m excited for the challenge."
The competitive rebuild was laughed at by many because it's somewhat of a catch-22 in some people's eyes. However, they were able to stay competitive week in and week out while fixing the salary cap issues, retaining star players in Justin Jefferson and Christian Darrisaw and now having to choose between two players the Vikings believe are franchise quarterbacks in Darnold and J.J. McCarthy.
How competitive have the Vikings been? Under O'Connell and Adofo-Mensah, they already have two 11+ win seasons and an overall record of 31-16. That's a great stretch for any franchise over 47 games, but to do so in taking over a bloated roster that needs to have the salary cap situation fixed while remaining competitive is very impressive. It's why Adofo-Mensah arguably deserves to win Executive of the Year.
On the other sideline, the Bears are in a much different spot. They hired Ryan Poles, who was the Vikings' other finalist for the general manager position, and he took the exact opposite approach.
Poles wanted to completely tear the Bears' roster down to the studs and he did so rather quickly. He did inherit a first round pick at quarterback in Justin Fields that was selected the year prior, which made the decision somewhat interesting.
Since Poles took over and hired head coach Matt Eberfuls, who was about to be fired by the Indianapolis Colts and was just fired himself after the debacle at the end of their Thanksgiving Day game against the Detroit Lions, the Bears are a paltry 14-33.
Yes, they are 19 games under 0.500 while the Vikings are 15 games over 0.500.
What exactly does this mean? Is the competitive rebuild the way to go? Well, it depends on how you approach it.
The one thing with ripping a team down to the studs is that you want to completely reset everything and then rebuild it in your vision. When you do that, it often includes offloading a multitude of talented veterans for draft pick compensation. When that happens, you essentially need all of your high draft picks to hit and quickly. Pair that with spending market value on a ton of free agents and it leaves you little margin for error.
The Vikings approached things much differently. They chose to build around the star players they had and filter out the bad contracts piece by piece. By keeping their star players, it gave the Vikings a much wider margin of error. It also allowed them to stay competitive, which gives the Vikings two things that the Bears didn't have:
- Develop a winning culture
- Keep fan interest and excitement
The Vikings continued to win football games and build a winning culture that has ranked first and second in the NFLPA player survey that grades how each franchise handles their business. The organization as a whole is world class in just about everything and the on-field product and strategy led by Adofo-Mensah and O'Connell epitomizes that.
For the Bears? Well, they now have the supposed quarterback of the future in Caleb Williams but have now fired their third coach during their first round picks first season. That's a brutal series of events for the Bears. Now, they did see some success with Matt Nagy, who did win the NFC North in 2018, but it didn't last long.
As things sit, Poles is on the hot seat and still has major holes to fill with the biggest on the offensive line, a position that was seen as Poles' specialty when the Bears hired him away from the Kansas City Chiefs.
Vikings fans should be thrilled that Poles and the organization couldn't agree to a deal and that made the decision easy for the Wilf's to hire Adofo-Mensah. They certainly wouldn't be in the good position they are and Jefferson might have been traded for draft picks.
We can talk about the things that Adofo-Mensah has struggled with. There isn't nearly enough success with his draft picks over his tenure. Most of that is because of the lack of success the 2022 NFL Draft class has had. There were a lot of things involved with that draft that Adofo-Mensah won't have moving forward.
In that 2022 NFL Draft, Adofo-Mensah was on the job for three months using Rick Spielman's scouts and process. Once the draft was over, it's evident based on how he's approached the 2023 and 2024 NFL Drafts that he has evolved his process a significant amount. It's also netted the Vikings some impressive hauls in the UDFA market with inside linebacker Ivan Pace Jr. included in that group.
Free agency has been where Adofo-Mensah has crushed it. Adding players like Jonathan Greenard, Andrew Van Ginkel, and Blake Cashman has been a huge addition to the roster and has elevated the defense to a different level.
Needless to say, every game against the Bears is a friendly reminder that the Vikings got it right.
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